Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Our rhythm, our normal rituals and daily schedule, has been broken. And this week, it's all about getting back to normal.

We've had quite a busy time these last few weeks. (As if it's never busy.) But with sleep training, starting solids finally, getting a first major cold and fever, a week in Spokane and birthday event at the end of it all, with more people to end a people-filled week, we are ready to relax and wind down and get back into routine.

Sleep training: worth it when you see the results! As hard as it is for a bit, the pay off for all of us is gratifying. Longer naps and no more rocking for endless times and then running back and forth to soothe...so much more time.

We were excited for food. I've been holding off even if our baby has been wanting to for a while...but it's a full on go now.

I thought it'd be nice to have everyone see Jemma in Spokane, but the truth is, it was such a hassle and I like to travel with Peter, so I will most likely not do that again. Three times more work for me, and at the end of it all, just would have rather stayed at home. But at least grandma and grandpa got a bit of time with her...she grinned her huge grin at everyone and made herself at home between the two houses we were at during the day...

It's true when people say, mother knows best. And in our case, daddy too, because he spends quite enough time with our little one to know her and her ways...

I love Peter, but I love him even more for the fact that he loves his daughter and spends time with her and takes part in taking care of her. And she just adores him! He was her motivation to push off on her fours, to crawl to him... She follows him with her eyes and can't wait to be in his arms! I tell her, daddy's home, at the sound of the garage door, and she turns her head to the door where he comes in...waiting...it makes me happy to see that face of contentment, that pleased look, as she's taken and cuddled.

So to finish off a very 'stressed' time, and to unwind and relax, we put her to sleep on Sunday night and watched a food movie. Nothing like a good food movie that makes you giggle and cry...and it's about food! Movies about food can't go wrong!

So now it's Tuesday, and I had a moment to sit and just think... The house is not quite as I like it.. Scattered a bit. Clean but scattered. But I am happy. I am at home. I get to see my husband when he comes home from work, we have all that we need, and our baby is just a joy. It's quiet and peaceful, I have a list of things to do but I know to pace myself... I have a piano to play to relax, (thanks to my dad for that- and more on that later,) and.. it's time to eat so off I go...

"Это не девочки. Это уже дамы." -10 yr old Marie Werner, after being told how old we are.

"Kakalake!" -Katharina Kilian

"...have some French craps." (crepes with an accent) -Björn Kilian

"I am a real German." -Björn Kilian in Köln, Germany

"We're all put to the test, but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer..." -Charles Morse played by Sir Anthony Hopkins in The Edge

"You can't take care of others if you can't take care of yourself. -Someone wise. I can't remember who.

"Don't insult my intelligence." -from an episode on Psych

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. -John 13:14

“...Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world...” -Martin Luther

"There's a raisin in my shoe!" -myself, at the hotel in Long Beach

"Я тебя не узнал(а)!"

"It is such a happiness when good people get together--and they always do." -Miss Bates in Emma

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. -Mark Twain

A single rose can be my garden...a single friend, my world. -Leo Buscaglia

"Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn." -C.S. Lewis

True happiness. Consists not in the multitude of friends, But in the worth and choice. -Ben Jonson

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. -Leanardo da Vinci

Teased, twisted, puffed out then sprayed with a wicked concoction of chemical spider's webs: a woman's hair, according to Manuela, must be architectural or nothing at all. -from Elegance of the Hedgehog